Is ‘Political View’ a Factor When Deciding to Block People on Facebook? – Survey of the Day

As we get closer to the 2012 Presidential election, more and more people are using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to express their political views. According to a survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, these views are sometimes a little too surprising to the poster’s web friends.

Pew polled 1,729 internet users on if they had ever discovered through a friend’s social networking postings that the friend’s political beliefs were different than they had thought. Thirty-eight percent answered that this had happened.

But what’s more surprising is that 18 percent of respondents have blocked, dropped or hidden a friend because they didn’t like their political point of view, or they posted too much about politics. This practice is most prevalent in those who describe themselves as liberal, with 28 percent having done so. Sixteen percent of conservatives and 14 percent of political moderates have also blocked, dropped or hidden an internet friend for political reasons.